Lost in Thought
by Final Fight
Summary: Screaming... That was the word... That was what he was doing... RobRae
1. Open Your Eyes

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans

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Lost in Thought

Open your eyes.

The black cape swirled in the rain as he walked through the shadows; it seemed to twirl with a life of its own… The voices were still there, calling him… He couldn't go back… Not now… Not after everything that had happened… He had to keep walking… away…

Open your eyes.

Failure was a cold cruel thing. He had never liked the taste of it… Here he was again – failing again… He always failed in the end…

Open your eyes.

Were his goals and dreams of so little worth? Were all the things that he had said or done for not? Of course they were - he was no hero… He was a fake… He was just a scared little boy… Dreaming big… Losing bigger…

Open your eyes.

Screaming… That was the word… That was what he was doing…

_**OPEN YOUR EYES!**_

"Robin come on! Open your eyes! Open your eyes damn it!"

The sirens were everywhere. The sun baked the ground, blistering with its heat. It was no longer possible to breathe with ash choking the air. Cyborg called to the paramedics… They weren't coming quickly enough. Robin's form still cradled in his arms, he ran towards them and the rest of the rescue teams. As he ran he could see Beast Boy leading a group of firemen into one of the collapsing buildings, and Starfire blasting a path for them. Raven was holding a bombed out bus above a group children who had previously been occupying it. But none of this was registering with him, the only thing he could think about was the utterly broken bird he was carrying.

Why hadn't he seen it? Why hadn't he realized what was going to happen? He had read Robin's vitals… He had seen how tired Robin was… He had known how Robin's reaction time had degenerated… But he had just followed him… He hadn't stopped him, or told him to take a breather…

As the emergency personnel took Robin from him, and the rest of the Titans began to see that something was amiss, Cyborg saw what he had failed to see before, what he had forgotten: Robin didn't have a body made of metal, he couldn't change into any animal at will, he wasn't super strong, powers of levitation weren't part of his resume. Cyborg had failed to see what was so important, and what Robin had done everything to hide. He had forgotten that Robin was human…

Every rib, both arms, both legs, all were broken. Fractures riddled his left hand, and his skull was cracked. He'd lost over a gallon of blood. By all rights he should have been dead. Instead he was in critical condition, with a coma. The doctors had told them that it was a miracle. Raven knew different. She knew that he wouldn't go without his say-so; she also knew it was all her fault…

"Raven it's not your fault…" Cyborg trailed off…

She said nothing. The waiting room was dotted with chairs and couches, a few ferns and pictures were all that interrupted the otherwise all white room. It only took an instant to take it in. She tried to distract herself with the titles of the magazines on the table next to her – it didn't work.

_You wore him down, _her mind told her. _If it weren't for you he would have been able to get out of that building. If it weren't for you he would be here, he would be fine… You forced him to help try to find it… All because you had a 'bad' feeling…_

"Hey guys, the doctors say that his condition has stabilized," BB stated as he walked into the room.

Cyborg said something after Beast Boy's announcement, but Raven wasn't listening. She was still too preoccupied with her own thoughts. The large metal doors opening got Raven's attention. Starfire came walking in (she had said her emotions were too unstable for flight Raven recalled) sat down and said in a small voice, "Friend Robin will be ok won't he?"

Cyborg and Beast Boy quickly assured her that Robin would indeed be fine, but once again Raven said nothing. She knew that Robin may indeed never be fine, she might never hear him tell her that she had done a great job after a battle, or see his cocky grin, or… She couldn't do this. Raven stood up to leave, but the commanding stare that Cyborg gave her told her under no uncertain terms that she was to stay inside the building. She nodded slightly and walked out of the room.

Beast Boy watched her leave with a certain anxiety. He knew that she blamed herself for what had happened to Robin, though he didn't know why. What worried him most was the prospect of her withdrawing from them to enter her own 'creepy' world. Beast Boy might not have been as observant as some of the other Titans, but he could tell when something bad was happening.

"Cyborg? Could I talk to you for a minute?"

Cyborg seemed to note the uneasy expression on Beast Boy's face as something serious. "Sure BB."

"Thanks," Beast Boy said as they walked away from a sleeping Starfire.

"Sure, what's up?"

"I'm worried about Raven. I think we need to keep a kinda close eye on her," Beast Boy stated sheepishly.

"Hm… I don't like the thought of spying on one of our friends, but you're right... We definitely need to do something."

"Alright... So… Should I follow her?"

"Yeah…" Cyborg sighed, "You probably should…"

It was so dark. He couldn't see his hands. All he heard was whispering. He tried to call out, but his mouth wouldn't work. He tried to move, but his muscles didn't respond. But suddenly he was moving anyway… downward…

He could see the outline of something, it was coming toward him (or was he going toward it?). It looked like a hospital room, but suddenly he was pulled up – away from the light. He struggled in vain as he was pulled back to the darkness…

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I don't really know where this is going, or if I should continue it. I would be appreciative of any suggestions though.


	2. Voices and Darkness

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans

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(Raven)

It was raining. She observed the water cascading down from the sky, and hitting the window she was staring out of. Raven sighed… She could see in her mind Robin's battered, bruised and bloodied body as the doctors and nurses had rushed him into the emergency room. _It's all my fault… If only I hadn't asked him! If only…_

Two Days Ago

She was panting in exertion. _One more before I'm done…_

"Come on Raven!"

One of her teammates was shouting encouragement; but she was focused on the task at hand.

_Three… Two… One… GO!_

She shot for the swinging hoop, and after passing through it she managed to pull back just in time. Several large boulders rioted down from the raised platform. Raven took one in her power, and used it as to shield herself from the rest of them. Once she had passed through she was greeted by the final part of the relay.

Robin had asked Cyborg to fix up a few of Slade's bots – and improve them if possible. The results were two extremely-fast, super-strong, sonic-wave emitting robots of destruction (or as Cyborg called them 'my BEAT-DOWN Machines!'). Raven let out a small smirk when she saw that they both had matching 'BEAT-DOWN' logos.

Raven moved to pick one up with her powers - but it jumped too quickly, and came down behind her. She spun as fast as she could – but her efforts were rewarded with a strong side-kick and a high-pitched wave of disorienting sound. Her retribution was timely and efficient however – a boulder from the earlier section came up from the left side of the robot – and destroyed it utterly.

The other bot was midair when it was hit by the boulder, but right before Raven could follow up her attack and eliminate the machine - she was assailed by voices.

All she heard were screams and mutterings. It wasn't making any sense. She shook and fell, her body rapidly twitching from the assault on her mind. The last thing she saw was Red and black meeting sliver… Then she passed out.

When Raven awoke it was to the blurred but distinctly worried faces of her teammates. Once she started becoming oriented to her surroundings she noticed that she felt cold all over, and rather nauseous. As she shakily began to sit up she was thwarted by a soft yet firm hand and a, "Whoa –

take it easy there…" from Robin as he gave her a small smile.

"Raven – what happened back there?" were the first words out of Cyborg's mouth. His query was followed closely by a similar one of Beast Boy's devising.

"Yes friend Raven, why did you do the passing of the out?"

"Uh… That's '_passing out'_ Starfire," Raven with a quiet voice corrected automatically, but then the question began to register. _Why did I pass out? What were those voices? Could it… no – it's impossible…_

_Still…_

The anxious faces of her teammates pulled her out of her reverie however, and she realized she needed to say something, "Um… I don't really know guys…" When she recognized that this wasn't satisfying them she tiredly added, "I guess I need to meditate and get some rest…" Cyborg gave her a quirked eyebrow before shrugging his shoulders and walking away, while Beast Boy just muttered under his breath, "Whatever…" before he turned and left. Thankfully, Starfire simply smiled and nodded before floating off. Robin – on the other hand, didn't look like he was going to budge.

"Rae," She scowled at the nickname, "What happened?" Robin asked when the rest of the Titans had left the room.

"I told you Robin – I don't know," she responded weakly, hoping that he would just let it go. _Fat chance of that…_

Robin looked unhappily at her before softly saying once again, "What happened?"

"I don't know! I told you that! Stop pestering me!" Raven spat with as much force as she could muster. Yet his only seemed to fluster Robin further.

"Bull, Raven! I know you! You're hiding something!" The anger left Robin as quickly as it came however, when he noticed Raven shaking quietly. "Raven – please," Robin begged as he walked over to her and knelt by the bed, "I know that something's wrong. I just want to help…"

She looked at the mask hiding his eyes, and finally gave in. "I... Well... It's just that-"

Present

Her thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched scream that came from a strange green fly as it was blown by a newly turned on fan.

(Robin)

Black. It was everywhere. He wandered along the darkened path, looking at the black nothingness all around him. He had traveled this way before, but he didn't remember when… or where it led too. The end was near though, he knew that much…

The path came to an abrupt halt, dropping off into nothing. Robin had known that this would happen, he knew what to do…

He jumped.

Instead of falling he was shot upward, toward the Empty black void.

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Thanks for all the reviews – I do promise that things will start to make sense soon.


	3. Questions and Riddles

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

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"Do you believe in Hell Richard?"

The figure sat on an ornate chair in the middle of the dim room. The only light source – a fireplace – cast flickering shadows over the walls, and left scars of light and dark in his mind. He felt cold despite the large fire, and it was only then that he realized that no heat seemed to be perpetuating from it – rather, it seemed to suck the warmth out of him.

The figure itself looked as if it were being obscured by a cloud of smoke, but as he walked toward it he began to make out features. It was a man, a very handsome man in fact, who had short dark blond hair, and was dressed in a manner more akin to an eighteenth-century noble man than to any modern contemporary. Robin felt immediately drawn to… and revolted by him.

"Please, sit. My reputation would surely suffer if it was found that my hospitality is so lacking that my guest did not have a seat," the man stated. His voice had no real tone to it, no inflection.

Robin looked to his side and saw a chair identical to the one in which the man sat on – a chair he had failed to notice before.

"But at any rate, back to my original query – do you believe in Hell?"

As Robin sat he finally answered the question, "Of course, I've been there."

The man looked at Robin bemusedly and replied, "have you now…?"

Robin was about to say that he **definitely** had been to hell, but stopped when a question entered his mind, "Why do you want to know?"

The man's face didn't change as he pondered the question, and his answer had the same cordial – and yet dead – tone as before when he answered. "I wanted to know because I was curious Richard."

Robin considered for a moment and then asked, "Who are you?"

The man's eyes opened wide in mock shock as he said, "Oh dear! I do beg your forgiveness Richard. My name is Robin."

* * *

Raven had a feeling she knew what was happening before she had even turned around, now that she had she found that she had been dead on.

Beast Boy's drained form lay sprawled before her, tangled in a heap of limbs. "What are you doing?" asked the empath.

"Um… hey Raven I was just uh… getting some air… heh…," was his relatively pathetic reply.

"I can see that. But-" Raven was cut off before she could go any further by a loud yell from the other end of the hall.

"HEY! GUYS! COME HERE!" Beast Boy gave Raven a perplexed shrug.

"NOW!"

"We're coming Cyborg!" Raven called out.

As they walked back into the waiting room Raven noticed that Star wasn't in her chair, and that Cyborg's face had a strange mix apprehension and excitement. Cyborg was reading over some official looking papers, and only noticed that Raven and Beast Boy had arrived when Beast Boy gave a loud, "Ahem!"

Cyborg looked up at this point and his face broke into a wide grin. "I just got this from the doctors; it says that Robin's condition has stabilized enough for us to be allowed to take him back home!" Beast Boy's face lightened up with a smile at this prospect. But Raven only asked to see the paper.

Cyborg looked at her quizzically before handing over the analysis and release forms. Raven took it from him and only just registered that Beast Boy had begun asking questions about Robin.

The papers seemed to show only good knew as Raven flipped through them, until she got to a document that showed brain waves. The papers showed huge amounts of activity, but expressed no signs of Robin waking up…

Raven looked up at this point to here what Cyborg and Beast Boy were saying. "No way man! Knowing Robin he'll be up tomorrow demanding that we train!" Beast Boy said while laughing with Cyborg.

"Yeah you're probably right. I bet he'll say that we planned the whole thing to get out of our exercises!" Cyborg stated as he began to get up.

Starfire had joined them by this point, having had come out of the bathroom. "Oh what Glorious news friends! I shall make the pudding of happiness as soon as we get home!" With this comment everyone's' faces dropped.

* * *

Robin stared at the man who had just identified himself as Robin. Something was wrong with this person… He could feel it… "What is this?" he asked slowly.

"What is what, Richard?" '_Robin_' replied.

"This," Robin responded.

The man looked at him amusedly before uttering nonchalantly, "_This_ is a conversation."

Robin was about to reply when he saw something in the man's eyes…

Bones…

Death…

Robin looked closer at the man before him, and began to notice things. A strange gleam came from the man's teeth as he smiled, and his fingernails were not translucent… they were white – pure white.

"What are you?"

The man laughed at this. His head rose as his shoulders convulsed up and down, and a sound that seemed like sweet – and yet poisoned – honey came from his lips.

"Are you some sort of vampire? Or daemon?" Robin demanded.

The man's laugh quieted as he looked at Robin. He seemed to be pondering some sort of riddle, and his gaze seemed to go through Robin's body.

"Perhaps... I don't know–Are you?"

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I know I said it was going to start making sense – but I guess you'll just have to wait… 


	4. Nightmares I

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

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"Wait! Stop Greg! I'm sorry! I never realized it before! I love you! I've always loved you!"

Raven rolled her eyes at the woman on the tv and continued reading her book. _Honestly, if this is the best those writers can do then I really don't understand how they keep making money…_

The scene continued playing out as the man turned grabbed the women and kissed her, which succeeded only in getting a snort out of the purple-haired resident. She stood, and taking her book with her got into the elevator, but just as she was about to push the button for her floor she had an inexplicable urge to go to the medical bay. After pondering on it Raven decided that it was just as good a place to read as any and that she could check on Robin as well.

_Robin…_

As the elevator made its way up the T-shaped tower and as Raven walked the short distance to where Robin was, she pondered over the last few weeks. _No change… no change… NO CHANGE! _She swore mentally as the automatic door opened to allow her inside the mini-hospital.

Raven looked over at the Boy Wonder, lying on bed with various machines monitoring him. He looked so pale…

Robin hadn't gotten any better over the last month and the hope that had filled the other occupants of the tower was all but extinguished. Raven knew that things were getting to be too difficult without their leader there to guide them. She remembered that it had been said that Starfire was the glue that held the Titans together, and she knew that in many ways it was true. What she had never thought of however, was that without Robin there **weren't** any Titans…

Had she ever really appreciated him?

One of the seats next to the bed Robin was occupying groaned softly as Raven slowly sat on it. She looked back over at Robin's face before she subconsciously entwined his fingers with her own and said barely above a whisper, "Where are you Boy Blunder?"

* * *

God damn he was tired of this.

Robin ducked as more bullet fire ricocheted against the concrete wall behind him. Chips of the material fell on his back and the snow around him, and he shivered from the cold. He didn't understand how he had managed to end up here – yet then again – he didn't know how he had made it to any of his most recent locales. He would just barely escape an ordeal in one of these endless nightmares before waking up to a whole knew one…

He could feel more than hear the tank grinding through the snow toward him, and he realized that if he didn't move quickly he never would again. So as he heard pot-shots in the distance being taken by snipers he sprinted as quickly as one can when hunched over to the small corner of the nearest bombed out building.

"Er ging hinter dieses Gebäude! Erhalten Sie ihn!"

_Shit! They've seen me!_ Robin searched desperately for a weapon with his eyes and located an abandoned rifle by a pile of red-bricks. He picked it up just in time to hear someone yell out from behind him, "Lassen Sie die Gewehr fallen!"

Robin had not reached the position of being a world renowned superhero by being slow however, and he wiped backwards while throwing himself on the ground as he fired his gun at the opposing soldier.

He saw the man stagger back and cough blood before falling down in a heap. The softly falling snow seemed to almost pool like water as it gently fell on something that had just moments ago been breathing. Robin staggered to his feet while pushing this thought away – he knew that if he was going to make it out of this alive he had to keep moving.

As he ran among the endless fields of strewn rubble he thought back to his encounter in that strange room, and the cryptic message he was now trying to decipher.

(Flashback)

"What?"

The 'man' continued to stare out at nothing, and Robin began to find himself more and more uncomfortable. The fire had begun to die down and the room was getting cold – a sense of foreboding spread through Robin as he watched his companion's eyes focus and turn to him.

"Why are you still here?"

_What the…?_

"Excuse me?"

"Leave."

Robin didn't know what to say, hadn't the 'man' asked a question only moments ago? Besides, how was he supposed to leave – there were no doors in the room.

"I don't understand."

The eyes of Robin's counterpart smoldered when the statement reached his ears.

"You are no longer necessary – you should have left."

Confusion filled Robin's mind, but suddenly a sharp pain split through his chest as the stranger hit him. More punches and kicks met a startled Robin's body, and while usually he could have simply beaten this other _'Robin'_ to a pulp – Some unseen force was weighing him down.

"Get out Richard! I don't need you anymore! You're a complication – it's mine now! MINE!"

Drowning in pain, Robin looked up and caught a glimpse of his assailant – and wished he hadn't. The 'man's' pale skin was now peeling off of him, revealing a long dead core.

"What do you want from me!" Richard managed to shout under the hail of abuse – and suddenly it stopped.

And a voice quite unlike any that had been used in the room before answered scornfully with – "I want you to fade away, Richard… Just fade away…"


	5. Nightmares II

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans

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"Comrade! Over here!"

Robin looked up and saw the man who was waving at him crouching next to a pile of rubble. Terrible stench pervaded from the spot, and he could see ragged bodies of Russian infantry all around him. The tank-tracks and barbed-wire that criss-crossed the torn up earth around the heap only seemed to add on to the hellish quality of the place, but at this point Robin didn't really care what it looked like as long as it had cover.

"Were you part of the 3rd wave or the 4th? Well I guess it doesn't really matter now – does it? Do you want some beans? I think I have some somewhere around here…" the man continued to ramble away as Robin began to see that whoever his newfound 'friend' was, the man was clearly rattled. But then again, what did it matter?

"I was a member of the 2nd myself, I wa-" the man went into a coughing fit, and after recovering he remained silent as he continued to look for the can of beans that clearly wasn't there…

* * *

Raven woke slowly and stretched her arms only to find them hampered by something warm and soft… Raven's eyes flew open in an instant and she found herself looking directly into Robin's sleeping face.

_Fuck…_

Raven scrambled off the bed and started backing away toward the door. What had she been thinking? Turning, she half-ran half-walked to the elevator and punched in her floor number. When had she fallen asleep? HOW had she fallen asleep in _that_ position? The door chime rang and she hurried to her room, where she could wrap herself in silence.

(Flashback)

_She looked at the mask hiding his eyes, and finally gave in. "I... Well... It's just that-"_

"What Raven? What's wrong?" The whirring of the machines and the beeping computers were the only sounds to be heard in the relatively empty medical room, but they seemed deafening to Raven, who simply wanted to sink into the floor.

"My father…" Robin nodded encouragingly, "well, he isn't the _only_ daemon… there are others – **_endless_** others." Raven stressed the endless part. "I felt something earlier, a… a force, it was strong…" Raven shivered, "so strong…"

"Hey… hey it's alright…" Robin assured her. "What do you think needs to be done?"

(Present)

From then on Robin had worked ceaselessly in order to find the source of the daemonic aura, spurned on by Raven's occasional psychic attacks. But days turned into weeks and Robin begun to wear-out from his non-stop hunt. When a distress call came in for several collapsing buildings the Titans had moved out. But Robin wasn't in form, he tripped… he was crushed…

Tears began to run down Raven's cheeks as she thought of his broken-battered body being wheeled to that Emergency Room. She thought he was dead… She thought she would die…

Raven knew that things couldn't continue the way they were going, but what could she do? Robin was lost to her- no! not her! To them…

* * *

"Hey comrade, I found the beans!" Robin looked up at the old bedraggled man and saw him holding up a stone and grinning. He kept motioning for Robin to take the stone, and Robin didn't have the heart (or the energy) to say no. As he took the stone into his hands he noticed a hand-print of blood on it. When Robin looked up he was greeted by the most terrifying sight he had ever seen.

The man, who had only moments before been sitting next to him, seemed to be… _opening_ somehow… The man's mouth had begun to overtake his face, while his stomach was actually warping into itself. The fingernails and had peeled back, blood was leaking and gushing everywhere… But of all the things that Robin noticed, the fact that no sound could be heard was perhaps the most off-setting.

When was the silence going to break? The man was not screaming, no popping or breaking sounds issued forth from his body. Even the constant rattle of the gunfire was gone, replaced only by that strange, deafening silence… When was the silence going to break!

Silence broken.

"YOU"RE STILL HERE!"

The roar was earth-shattering, it shook the bodies of the slain and the gravel that they lied upon and brought down the walls of the few buildings still left standing.

From the warped, twisted, scarred husk of that thing that was once a man; A nightmare arose. Pale and lithe, its ever-changing face leered at Robin. It (_it_ because the thing that 'stood' before him could be described in no more specific a way) gazed at him with eyes unseeing, and moved its hands in patterns that Robin could not begin to fathom. The hands themselves were no more hands that a seahorse is a horse, as what seemed to function as its fingers had holes and strange whip-like… tongues(?) coming out of the 'fingertips.'

"Not de.Ad yet. , Ay Ri.Cha.Rd?" nearly unintelligible words flowed from it's mouth, and it's cloak of rainbow shadows thrashed around it as if in the middle of a deadly tempest – when in fact there was no wind at all.

"W.E! S.Hou.Ld F.ix. T**h.A**_t_ do.N't Y.O.U. Th.In.K?"

* * *

I apologize for the lateness of this chapter guys, I guess I just had a lot of things on my mind.

As many of you have heard – Lain The Fluff Master has recently left the fanfiction community, therefore, this story is dedicated to her.


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